What A Football Weekend!

Well, you couldn't have closed out 2022 and begin 2023 in any better fashion, football-wise, that what we were treated to this past weekend.

Let's start with the College Football Playoff Semi-finals.

I can recall that in past years, like last year, these semi-final games have tended to be one sided and just not all that good.  Not so this year.

First game, TCU 51 - Michigan 45.  Explosive offenses.  Tremendous quarterback play, and a game that went to the final minutes.  Plus, Jim Harbaugh gets beat.  At the end of the game, my thought was, "Top that game, Georgia and Ohio State."

Well, they did.  Georgia 42 - Ohio State 41.  Explosive offenses.  Tremendous quarterback play, and a game that went down to the final three seconds before it was decided.

Currently, Georgia is a 13.5 point favorite in the CFP Championship game.  The Over/Under is set at 62.5 (bet the OVER).  Regardless of the point spread, if you have no dog in the fight, how could you not be rooting for TCU against the SEC behemoth Georgia?   Should be a whale of a game, and I can't wait to see it.

Then came Week 17 of the NFL.  I confess to missing all of the afternoon games yesterday for various and sundry reasons.  I know that it featured an amazing Tom Brady Performance, an amazing Aaron Rodgers Performance, a crushing victory for Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars, and an OT win by the 49ers.  Would have loved to have seen them all, but I didn't, but I did see yet another classic in the epic drama that is Mike Tomlin's Steelers vs. John Harbaugh's Ravens.  This one won by the Steelers 16-13.

It was won with :54 remaining when Kenny Pickett passed...

...to Najee Harris in the end zone....

...for the game winner.  It was a tremendous throw as Pickett had to scramble to his left to avoid being sacked, and an even more tremendous catch by Harris.  It also marked the second week in a row where Pickett led the team on length-of-the-field drives in the closing minutes of the game to win it for the Steelers.

The Steelers playoff hopes, amazingly (remember that they were 2-6 at one point), are still alive.  They need to beat the Browns at home next week, but are dependent on two other games going their way, so it's a long shot at this point.  This season, it should be remembered, was not going to be about W's and L's or deep playoff runs.  It was to be about the replacement of an 18 year vet Hall of Fame quarterback and the development of first round pick Kenny Pickett into the QB of the Future.  That story has yet to be written, of course, but it seems to be trending, as Neal Huntington used to put it, upward.

One last comment on last night's game.  However, you may feel about Chris Collinsworth as an announcer  - I happen to like him, but I know that many consider him a football version of Tim McCarver - he does know football, and a couple of comments he made last night were noteworthy to me.  One, he made a number of favorable comments about LB Robert Spillane, two, he said that Pickett's TD pass to Harris was worthy of anything Patrick Mahomes does, and three, he compared Pat Freiermuth to Travis Kelce.  That is some pretty serious company.

Already looking forward to next week.

Najee Harris and Other Draft Day One Observations

I never thought that I would have done this, and I don't believe that I had ever done it before, but last night I turned on the NFL Draft at 8:00, and I stayed with it up until the Steelers made their pick at slot number 24, three hours and twenty minutes later. It helped to have the distraction of social media and the ability to make humorous (one hopes) comments with other losers/geeks football fans who were doing the same thing.

Anyway, as you might expect, I have some comments to offer.....

I am thrilled - THRILLED - with the selection of RB Najee Harris of Alabama by the Steelers.

He comes from a big time college program, and he has excelled at the very highest level of the college game.  He addresses a serious need of the Steelers.  I watched his Zoom call with local media this morning, and he seems to be a very nice kid.  And if you like omens....the Steelers have an excellent record when selecting running backs named Harris in the first round.   

As for me, I always liked watching him play at Alabama, and I absolutely fell in love with him when I watched him make this jaw-dropping play against Notre Dame last season:

Also, Marilyn loves cheering "Na-jee, Na-jee, Na-jee" when she watched him play, so he's got that going for him, too.

Of course, all draft picks are great on Draft Day, and you really do have to wait until they get on the field against real live NFL players, but on Draft Day, you've got to be optimistic, so welcome to Steelers Nation, Najee Harris.

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Five quarterbacks were selected among the first fifteen picks:

1. Trevor Lawrence, 1, Jacksonville
2. Zach Wilson, 2, NY Jets
3. Trey Lance, 3, San Francisco
4. Justin Fields, 11, Chicago
5. Mac Jones, 15, New England

Lawrence was a no-brainer, of course, but the selection that intrigues me the most was the selection of Alabama's Jones by Bill Belichick and the Patriots.  Scouts weren't as big on Jones as they were the four QBs who went ahead of him, but he was the guy who led Alabama to an undefeated season and the CFP Championship, and someone was throwing the ball to those two first round receivers at 'Bama.  Critics site that he wasn't good at his pro days, and to that I say, to Hell with Pro Days, I saw Mac Jones play in real football games, and he is going to the greatest coach of the 21st century.  If I was a Patriots fan, I'd be feeling pretty good about that selection.

Of course, the chances are also pretty good that one or two of these guys will turn out to be ordinary NFL QB's, at best, and might turn out to be complete busts (think Jamarcus Russell and Ryan Leaf), not that I wish that on any of them.  

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Can you believe the people that turn up to sit in the audiences at these things?  The outfits, the face paint, the outlandish hats and headgear.  I wonder what some of these people do in real life.  Are any of them doctors, lawyers, CPA's, or high powered business executives?  What if you were in need of delicate heart surgery and found out the day before the operation that your surgeon is the guy who wears a dog mask in Cleveland, or one of the dudes in the garish green and white Jets stuff, or the guy with Iron City Beer cans welded to a construction worker's hard hat? 

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I started watching ESPN, but as soon as I saw that Mike Greenberg was the anchor and Booger McFarland was on the desk, I went to the NFL Network and stayed there, not that their gurus were any more rational than Mel Kiper Jr.

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Apparently, at some point, and I am not sure when this happened exactly, and new position came about in football called "edge rusher" or, more simply, "edge."  That being the case, I suggest that the NFL call this guy in to host next year's Draft festivities.